The country is concerned about this influx at the border. “Concerned” is perhaps too much a State Department word. The people are very worried, for it seems like it’s out of control and getting worse. So it was a little shocking for most of us yesterday when the president was urged by so many to go down to the border, and he got all snarky:

Jeh Johnson has now visited, at my direction, the border five times. He’s going for a sixth this week. He then comes back and reports to me extensively on everything that’s taking place. So there’s nothing that is taking place down there that I am not intimately aware of and briefed on.This isn’t theater. This is a problem. I’m not interested in photo ops; I’m interested in solving a problem.

That was fascinating to the media, who are quite familiar with the president’s penchant for photo-ops and more than ready to poke fun. The very earnest press secretary, Josh Earnest, said “His view is that solving problems is most important, and solving problems is what the president was doing when he was in Dallas on Wednesday. It’s also what the president has been doing over the last several weeks.”

Well, not exactly. He was mostly there for a significant number of fundraisers to benefit the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, just in Texas, mostly at $32,400 a pop.

Back when Mr. Obama was a senator running for the presidency, Richard Epstein, who knew him at U. Chicago and through his next door neighbor who is one of Obama’s closest friends, said that Obama had the most perfect character for a politician—he is in complete control of himself. He wants to be in control of his situation. That’s why he always speaks with a teleprompter. Why photographs of the president are always to be taken by the president’s photographer and released to the press. The press cannot take pictures any more. And that’s why photo-ops are to be under White House control, and favorable to the president. Remember the photo of the President, ‘alone’ in the Oval Office, observing a solemn moment of silence?

This particular photo released by the White House shows the president deep in thought in the Green Room, pondering terrorists running wild in Iraq beheading people and capturing those non-existent WMD, or perhaps he’s trying to decide what he wants for dinner. But why would he leave the Oval Office to go to another room, lean against a red chair, so fetching against the green walls, with the light from the window just right on his somber face? Because he wants the public to see how concerned he is. Photos are powerful.

This one, for example, won the last election for him. The exit polls showed that his concern about Hurricane Sandy damage was what swung the election, and this photo went viral. People thought it meant that President Obama “cares about people like me.” Of course he was promising marina owner Donna Vanzant, whose marina had just been destroyed, help from FEMA, and he would help, but of course that never happened. Photos are powerful. And Obama likes to be in control of the situation.

His is, however, noticeably intent on not being pictured with OTM illegal unaccompanied alien children. This administration’s effort is to get the DREAM Act that Congress refused to pass, passed by a surprising and unexpected (?) massive influx of kids, unaccompanied minors, mothers with children, gang members and some Chinese kids and maybe a bunch of terrorists. (They have found Muslim prayer shawls next to the border.)

I think this is, like “Fast and Furious,” the gun-running scheme that went so far astray and killed a Border Patrol agent, and hundreds of Mexicans, in the effort to get gun control, was an effort by the administration to get the immigrants from Central America who will, in time, be loyal Democrat voters, into the country. That picture in the free “ObamaShoes” is clearly meant to show where the pending amnesty came from., to those who don’t speak the language.